


To Slow, or Hinder

by CaraLea



Series: The Disabler [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blind Rage, PTSD, mentions of rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 17:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17585042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaraLea/pseuds/CaraLea
Summary: Months after her incident with Mercury, Yang has almost moved on entirely.Almost.





	To Slow, or Hinder

Yang was stubborn, as always. It was in her nature to be such a way. If she was honest with herself, there was more to it than that. She thrived off struggle. Overcoming obstacles was a defining part of her personality. If she wasn't facing any, she created them. Then she made herself a goal, a something to look forward to.  
  
Today Yang looked forward to training. Even days into the competition Yang still trained. Her team had decided long ago that Yang, being their powerhouse, would be the one to proceed in the competition if given the chance. Already they'd accomplished their 4v4 fight, and won. Now it was time to focus on the 2v2.  
  
Weiss was looking forward to training too, Yang knew. Her teammates had given her the choice. Who would she fight with in the second part of the competition? Of course she had immediately thought of Ruby. Her sister would've been ecstatic to fight alongside her, and Yang knew the younger of them would have given it her all. But Ruby was not the most versatile fighter, and if Yang was truthful her sister's youth worked against them here.  
  
Then she thought of Blake. Her partner was well exposed, an amazing fighter. Her silent cunning made Blake an invaluable resource. But something was off between them lately. Blake knew something was bothering Yang. That maybe the blonde brute hadn't been entirely honest with her teammates about something. Yang knew of no such thing. Sure, there were things that she didn't voice to her teammates. Wasn't she allowed to keep some things to herself? After all, she was only obligated to share a room with her friends (and to her sister they shared blood). On what planet did that mean she had to share everything with them?  
  
Which left her with Weiss. Her teammate was crafty and intelligent. Her small demeanor was off putting to those they fought, making her a valuable member of the team. Yang and Weiss had not fought together too often, so this truly was an opportunity to expand her talents with her Atlesian companion.  
  
So that is who she chose. Yang knew her other teammates were hurt that they didn't get to partake. Ruby especially. But they both had the maturity to shove off their own feelings in support of Yang's decision. It was honestly heartwarming to have their backing. It was truly what Yang needed right then to get the job done best. Weiss too.  
  
They were scheduled to fight tomorrow, so today was supposed to be a light training day. Eat the right foods to promote strength, go over strategies. They wouldn't know until the next morning who they'd be up against, but they knew to expect certain things. Like, for instance, a simple separate and destroy tactic. That wasn't just expected, but a given. It was a real and effective tactic for taking down an opposing team. So of course they had to be prepared for that.  
  
They were doing well, talking battle moves together at Weiss's desk when, abruptly, Ruby burst into the room. Weiss of course cursed in annoyance but not Yang. Ruby had been watching the tournament with some friends, and Yang knew that team CFVY had gone today. She assumed Ruby's excitement must have to do with that.  
  
"So," she asked when Weiss was done scolding her sister. "Did they kick ass?"  
  
Ruby and Blake exchanged a look.  
  
"Actually, no," Ruby answered. "Cocoa and Yatsu actually lost."  
  
"What?" Yang and Weiss exclaimed in unison.  
  
That caught Yang off guard. Yatsu and Cocoa on their own were formidable fighters. Together, they were nearly unstoppable. Or so she'd thought.  
  
"Who were they fighting?" she asked.  
  
Ruby answered, "Emerald and Mercury!"  
  
She continued to chatter on about it, but Yang stopped listening. One name stood out to her. Mercury. It made her want to hurl. He was her biggest kept secret, even after all these weeks, bordering months. It was something she hadn't talked to anyone about. She had come close, with Cocoa one night when they'd had a couple of hits from her bong. She'd begun to talk about it, but stopped herself. It was still too embarrassing to admit her weakness out loud.  
  
"...and they were actually really good," Ruby was finishing. "I was kinda surprised by their work."  
  
"So who's going to go on?" Weiss asked. She sounded clinical, like she was working on a particularly tough diagnosis. Maybe she was. Sizing up the enemy was one of Weiss's specialties.  
  
"Uhhh I think Mercury is," Ruby said, putting her had to her face while she thought.  
  
For some reason this only pissed Yang off. “Damn,” she swore, her teammates all looking at her in surprise. “What a tool.” 

Her teammates exchanged a look of shock, or at least Ruby and Weiss did. Blake narrowed her eyes at Yang in distaste.

“Well _that_ wasn’t very nice,” she commented dryly.

Yang countered, “Yeah, well nor is Mercury.”

Her response didn’t seem to satiate Blake. “How can you say that? Do you even know him?”

Defensive as ever, Yang lifted her chin. “I know enough. He’s a jackass, and a bully if you’ve heard the rumors.”

It was true. There were rumors about him around the school. That he’d said some very nasty remarks to Velvet in the gym. That he’d pushed Signe once when in the cafeteria. Whispers that echoed around the halls of the Beacon dorms, that painted a very unflattering picture of their exchanged student.

Yang wasn’t usually one to listen to such rumors. Everyone had some gossip about them floating around. Surely there was some about Yang out there, or her teammates. But this was too good an excuse to cling to, to hate him without revealing the truth.

“You know people have lied before,” Blake said reasonably. “You should try getting to know him before you buy into gossip.”

For some reason this pissed Yang off. “What, like you’re buddy-buddies with him?”

Blake tilted her head to the side, clearly thinking. “I don’t. I mean he seems nice though. Just a little shy.”

Anger pulsed through Yang’s veins, and a little of something else. “He’s a dick!” she spat. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“Nor do you!” Blake jabbed back with just as much vitriol. “You’re basing your opinions off rumors.”

Before Yang could respond, Blake was continuing. “I thought you were better than this Yang, but it turns out you’re just a bully like everyone else! And I won’t buy into that.”

Red flashed in her vision. Yang slammed her fist down onto the table. “You don’t know _anything_!” she snarled in blind rage. “You don’t what he’s _done_!”

Blake shot her a look that Yang couldn’t read. Disgust? Concern? Who knows? Yang couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t draw in a full breath. She felt a tingling sensation in her fingertips. All she could see was red.

“He hasn’t done anything!” Blake countered.

Not entirely aware of her aggression, ready to fight, Yang got to her feet, facing Blake down as if she were facing a Manticore. Vaguely she noted Ruby and Weiss step back, but not Blake. There was anger in Blake’s eyes too. After all that they had been through, they were ready to square off.

“Oh he’s done something alright,” she growled. “He rapes and molests women!”

“What?” Weiss exclaimed in surprise, but Yang ignored her.

She only had eyes for Blake, who looked still a mixture of concern and anger. “That’s ridiculous!” Blake said, though she sounded a little more flustered than before. “What a hurtful rumor!”

“It’s not a rumor,” Yang said, dead serious. She was shaking still, angry that her teammates didn’t believe her, angry that she had said anything to begin with. “It’s the truth.”

“How could possibly know that?” Blake argued, there was something off about her voice, but Yang didn’t catch it. All she caught was something snapping inside of her. Something she had been holding together for months. She no longer cared about whether or not they knew. She wanted to scream.

“Because he did it to _me_!”

Silence followed her words, filled only by her rapid breaths. She clenched her fist in anger, ready to throw a punch, but was stilled by her sister’s voice.

“Yang?”

She looked at her sister and froze, the realization of what she’d revealed washing over her like a bucket of ice water. Ruby’s face was one of horror, her eyes wide, her brows raised in concern. Yang’s head lashed over to Weiss’s gaze, seeing a similar look on the ice-princess’s face, her hands cupping her mouth. She looked across at Blake and saw the most painful expression there. Disbelief, horror, sadness. Blake’s eyes were pits. Endless pools of pity among other emotions.

Hysteria overcame Yang. She didn’t know anything other than _get out._ And her fight or flight instinct, which always prompted her to fight til she couldn’t fight anymore, kicked in. For the first time her entire life, Yang ran.

Yang whirled as fast as she could without spinning out of control, stopping only long enough to yank the bedroom door open. She thought she could hear her teammates calling her name behind her, but wasn’t paying enough attention to them to be sure. She ran with no thoughts on _where_ she wanted to end up, only that she ended up as far from here as possible.

Right, left, right down a hallway they never went down. There was a staircase at the end of the hall. She burst through the door, taking the steps down three at a time, not caring if she fell. From behind, she could hear the undeniable sounds of pursuit, but made it to the bottom before they found the stairwell.

She burst out of the exit and turned. Where was she going to go now? No time to question. She ran the long way around the building, heading out the back towards a full parking lot. Her long legs gave her an advantage. Pushing with all her might she _sprinted_ the length of the parking lot, on the side opposite the sidewalk to avoid people. Halfway across, she abruptly turned off path, running the length between two buildings and racing down a back alleyway. She stopped at the end of the alley- a dead-end.

Certain her teammates could not find her here, but still paranoid about being seen, Yang crouched down, setting herself behind a dumpster where her teammates couldn’t see her. She pulled her legs as close to her body as they could come, wrapping her arms around her legs and digging her face into her knees.

A powerful wave of hysteria overcame her. The emotion was overwhelming. The anger she’d felt from Blake, the pain she still felt within her, the looks she knew Mercury threw her whenever they were in the same room. He was still privy to her. Still remembered. And every time they were together he made sure she knew it.

All of it was too much. Without paying attention to volume, Yang began to _sob_. It was the first time she’d _ever_ cried like that. And she hoped it was the last. Her fingertips were numb. Her face felt like rings of electricity were washing over it. She cried harder than ever, a hitch in her breath wracked her body like a hiccup.

A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump. She quieted as fast as she could, pulling herself tighter into her ball, not wanting to share this space with anyone.

“Yang,” said Blake’s voice, filled only with concern. The last person Yang wanted to see at that moment. Yang turned away from her partner, hiding her face and her body from the cat-eared faunus. Shame and guilt overwashed her, making her feel barren and alone. She held her breath, waiting for the faunus to leave her alone.

“Yang,” Blake said again, her voice gentler than before. She had shifted positions to be kneeling at Yang’s side. “I’m so sorry.” She was crying, Blake was crying. Her every word, tinged with tears that Yang knew were running down her face, pierced Yang like a spear. She felt attacked all over again, curling up into herself more tightly. “Yang please,” Blake tried again. “I didn’t know.”

Yang didn’t answer. She tried to keep as still as possible. A deer in a headlight. A rabbit caught by a fox. She didn’t _want_ this. She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want Blake to know about it. Didn’t want…any of it. She wanted to go back in time, to sit at that desk and commit to battle planning with Weiss.

“I’m so sorry Yang,” Blake said, crying in earnest now. “Please forgive me.”

Unable to bear it any longer, Yang unraveled her arms, leaning in to her partner and pulling her into a hug. She wanted to say something. Wanted to say it was okay. Wanted to say that everything was fine. Wanted to crack a joke and move on. But some invisible barrier hung between them, and until that barrier was broken, there was nothing more they could do but talk about it.

Blake’s embrace was warm. She pulled Yang closer, enveloping her in warmth and security. Still unable to face the faunus, Yang chose to bury her head in her partner’s shoulder, crying again while Blake rubbed soothing circles into her back.

They were like that for a long moment, holding each other tightly. After a bit though, Blake firmly planted two arms on Yang’s shoulder and held her at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. There was something there, something like fire only washed out with tear.

“Yang, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said firmly. “Please don’t blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault.”

Yang shook her head, another like-hiccup overwhelming her again. “But it is. It was. It was all my fault. I- I let it go too far. I shouldn’t have let him get the better of me.” She could see the concern radiating in Blake’s gaze. “If I had fought harder, it wouldn’t have happened,” she finished weakly.

“No,” Blake said. She sounded almost angry. “This is _not_ your fault Yang. The only one responsible is him.”

“But if I had fought harder-”

“Men find a way to get what they want,” Blake interrupted. “I’m not saying that you’re not strong or that you can’t beat him it’s just…sometimes, things happen. Men take advantage. That’s not your fault Yang. Really it’s not.”

Yang didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t really believe Blake, that it wasn’t her fault, that this wasn’t out of her control. But she didn’t want believe that her friend was wrong. She didn’t _want_ it to be her fault. So she said nothing.

After a moment of silence, (where Yang _still_ could not look at her partner), Blake finally spoke again. “You should see someone.”

“No,” Yang said immediately. The thought of having to see a doctor about it, of having to _talk_ about it. That was too much. Her pride couldn’t take that. “I’m fine. I just want to move on and pretend it never happened.”

“But it _did_ happen, Yang,” Blake said, not without kindness. “You should at least get checked by a doctor.”

Again, Yang shut that idea down as quickly as possible. “No,” she said. “Really I’m fine. I just…” She let that thought trail off, not entirely sure where she’d been going with it.

Blake sighed. “Fine,” she said. “I’m not going to make you go if you don’t want to. But hey, you can always talk to me about it, okay?”

Yang looked up into her partner’s eyes, and not for the first time felt a flicker of some emotion, something heartwarming and pure. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to be with her partner, to look at her and to be wanted in return.

_I love you,_ she thought, but didn’t dare voice her opinion aloud.

There was something there, something undeniable. Something very powerful.

They hugged again, Yang pressing her head into Blake’s shoulder and taking a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said.


End file.
